The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has recorded a web presentation discussing the requirements of IFRS 16 Leases relating to the definition of a lease.

In the webcast, the IASB covers the following points:

• the IFRS 16 requirements and application guidance relating to the definition of a lease – including real-life application examples of each main element;
• practical differences between IFRS 16 and the previous definition of a lease requirements in IAS 17 Leases and IFRIC 4 Determining whether an Arrangement contains a Lease; and
• how entities should account for contracts with both lease and service components.

Kathryn Donkersley and Sarah Geisman, technical managers at the IASB, present the webcast and discuss the 'definition of a lease' requirements in IFRS 16, an area where the standard contains a lot of guidance and illustrative examples. They then compare how IFRS 16 compares to the previous requirements in IAS 17 and IFRIC 4, including the different outcomes when IFRS 16 is applied. Finally they discuss what entities will need to think about when they have contracts that contain both lease and service components and how they should deal with this in applying IFRS 16.

The webcast supports the implementation of IFRS 16 and is the third in the IASB webcast series. The series also covers an introduction to IFRS 16 and transition to the standard, as well as three more webcasts to be published later this month, on exemptions, lessee measurement and lessee disclosures. The series of webcasts are available here.